The committee was tasked back in November with selecting the default init system for the next release of Debian GNU/Linux, Jessie, by the leader of the project, Lucas Nussbaum.

Chief among those offended has been Ian Jackson, a former employee of Canonical, who is now involved in drafting a new resolution to ensure that any decision taken by the technical committee can be voted down by a simple majority in a general resolution submitted to the entire project.

Jackson has also put forward a second resolution that support for SysV should be mandatory in Jessie and also that multiple init systems will be supported as long as the communities behind those systems are healthy.

On January 25, Garbee drafted a resolution and called for a vote by committee members; he listed the options as systemd, upstart, OpenRC, SysV (the current init system), and further discussion. He voted in the same order.

Russ Allbery, another panel member, voted for systemd, upstart, more discussion, OpenRC and SysV in that order. Jackson, who has expressed a preference for upstart to be the default, took exception because Garbee's resolution did not mention that any decision of the technical committee could be overridden by a simple majority vote on a general resolution submitted to the project.

Jackson voted for further discussion, SysV, upstart, OpenRC and systemd in that order. According to him, it was wrong of Garbee to call for votes before allowing time for comments on the draft resolution.

Since two people have voted, and the Debian rules require a quorum of two, the call for votes remains valid and there is a week remaining for others to make their choices known. But it now looks like the vote will not be counted.

Free software veteran Keith Packard, the newest member of the technical committee, voted for systemd, upstart, SysV, OpenRC and further discussion. Another panel member Don Armstrong voted for further discussion and did not make othr choices. Steve Langasek, the upstart maintainer for Debian, listed further discussion, upstart, systemd, OpenRC and SysV as his choices.

The debate continues.

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A professional journalist with decades of experience, Sam for nine years used DOS and then Windows, which led him to start experimenting with GNU/Linux in 1998. Since then he has written widely about the use of both free and open source software, and the people behind the code. His personal blog is titled Irregular Expression.